Obama for America 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe. I was shocked to hear that he "thought Hillary Clinton did a very good job of talking very clearly about the struggles families are facing, the struggles of our small businesses." (No I wasn't.)

"Omarosa was terrible at spinning," according to Mike Pesca. "And she would have this conversation with me that no reasonable person would say, ‘Wow, that’s a real conversation.’ You would just say, 'Oh my god. What’s wrong with this person?' "

"I'm very passionate about politics," 17-year-old Sarah Dowd told me, "and since this is the first time that I can vote, I'm doing everything that I can to be politically active because it's my right as a citizen to do that."

See, we were supposed to send a whole team of people to the first presidential debate on Long Island. We were supposed to do an episode of The Colin McEnroe Show from Hofstra.

But then a bunch of parts of that plan fell through -- mostly because one semi-important figure in the whole thing just, well, totally forgot to get himself credentialed. So, in the great tradition of people like Biff Henderson, we sent producer Jonathan McNicol to the debate. Alone.

The job of the media is to inform voters on views and behaviors that relay how a political candidate will behave once elected to office. Fair and honest treatment does not necessarily lead to equal coverage. In the case of Donald Trump, it can lead to asymmetrical coverage of a candidate whose behavior appears to undermine the standards of democratic discourse.

For a normal show, on a normal day, in a normal time, we'd usually put two or three experts in a room with Colin and ask them to hash out whatever it is we're interested in for that hour.

For this show, by the time it's over with, we'll have corresponded with dozens of people and recorded interviews with seven or eight experts from ten or eleven different disciplines: a philosopher, an ethicist, a futurist, a speechwriter, a comedy writer, an author of speculative fiction, a politician, an 'investigative humorist,' a Muslim, an expert in international affairs, and an expert in... manners.

An offensive and sexist conversation between Donald Trump and Hollywood interviewer Billy Bush has been the catalyst for an even deeper rift in the Republican party. House Speaker Paul Ryan has dropped his support for the GOP nominee, saying he'll instead focus on defending the party's majority in Congress.